China has reached a secret deal with Cuba to establish an electronic eavesdropping facility on the island roughly 100 miles from Florida, the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing US officials familiar with classified intelligence. Such a spy installation would allow Beijing to gather electronic communications from the south-eastern United States, which houses many US military bases, as well as to monitor ship traffic, the newspaper reported. The US Central Command headquarters is based in Tampa. Fort Liberty, formerly Fort Bragg, the largest US. military base, is based in North…
Tag: US foreign policy
Li Shangfu: China’s defence minister at Shangri-La Dialogue warns of ‘cold war mentality’ in digs at US
China’s defence minister, Li Shangfu, has said a cold war mentality is resurgent in the Asia-Pacific region, but Beijing seeks dialogue over confrontation. The remarks came after Li refused to formally meet the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. Speaking at the dialogue, Asia’s top security summit, on Sunday, Li took thinly veiled digs at the US, repeating familiar grievances and accusing “some countries” of intensifying an arms race and interfering in the internal affairs of others. “A cold war mentality is now resurgent, greatly…
Taiwan hails ‘comprehensive’ trade deal with US as China issues warning
The United States and Taiwan have signed a trade deal aimed at deepening economic relations between both sides – in a move that has sparked a warning from Beijing. Taiwan’s government has described the deal as “the most comprehensive” trade agreement signed with Washington since 1979. The pact is “intended to strengthen and deepen the economic and trade relationship” between both sides, Sam Michel, a spokesperson at the US Trade Representative press office said in a statement on Thursday. The US-Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade looks to boost trade…
Kissinger at 100: Statesman or war criminal? His troubled legacy – in pictures
Kissinger with the founding father of Kenya, President Jomo Kenyatta, during his whirlwind tour of Africa in 1976. Over two weeks in April, Kissinger visited six countries, also meeting presidents Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, William Tolbert of Liberia, and Senegal’s Léopold Senghor. Despite these visits, critics said Kissinger was more interested in white minorities in southern Africa, with whom he had more sympathy. Photograph: World Politics Archive/Alamy The Guardian
Joe Biden’s advisers say he doesn’t want to drag Pacific allies into ‘headlong clash’ between US and China
Joe Biden’s senior advisers have acknowledged countries in the Indo-Pacific don’t want to be “trampled by a headlong clash” between the US and China. In a webinar with an Australian audience on Friday, senior White House national security council (NSC) officials said the US president wanted to give allies and other close partners “breathing space” to engage with China constructively. Edgard Kagan, the NSC’s senior director for east Asia and Oceania, said Biden had been listening to the region’s concerns. “I think the president is very focused on the fact…
Biden trade curbs on China risk huge damage to US tech sector, says Nvidia chief
The US risks causing “enormous damage” to its tech industry if it continues restrictions on trade with China, according to the chief executive of the chipmaker Nvidia. Jensen Huang said curbs introduced by the Biden administration, which include restricting the export to China of advanced chips made with US technology, had left the business with “our hands tied behind our back”. In an interview with the Financial Times, Huang said: “If [China] can’t buy from … the United States, they’ll just build it themselves. So the US has to be careful.…
US and Papua New Guinea set to sign security agreement amid Pacific militarisation concerns
The United States is scheduled to sign a new security pact with Papua New Guinea on Monday amid concerns in PNG about increasing militarisation and as the US continues to compete with China for influence in the Pacific. The state department said the new agreement would provide a framework to help improve security cooperation, enhance the capacity of Papua New Guinea’s defence force and increase regional stability. A draft copy of the Defence Cooperation Agreement leaked last week sparked concern in PNG about the extent of US military involvement in…
China aims to subordinate the west, claims US politician on UK visit
Beijing wants to “subordinate and humiliate” the west, according to the Republican chair of a newly created China committee in Congress, who is leading a delegation of hawkish US politicians on a two-day trip to the UK. Mike Gallagher argued that China, under President Xi Jinping, believed in “the inevitable demise of capitalism”, and said he hoped to better understand how far British politicians of all parties shared his committee’s concerns. The goal of Beijing, Gallagher argued, was “to render us subordinate, humiliated and irrelevant on the world stage and…
US China hawks to press UK minister for tougher line on Beijing
A Republican-led group of China hawks from the US Congress will visit Westminster on Friday where they are expected to meet the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, for lunch and press for the UK to take a tougher line on Beijing. The 11-strong delegation is led by the Republican congressman Mike Gallagher, who chairs a high-profile, newly created China committee. Some fear a strident anti-Beijing tone will alienate centrist and left-leaning politicians in the UK. Gallagher has called for a total ban on the Chinese-owned app TikTok, and argued in the…
US and China hold ‘constructive’ talks in effort to move beyond spy balloon incident
The White House national security adviser met with China’s top diplomat in Vienna as both sides recognised the need to move beyond the spy balloon incident that caused a rupture in relations between the superpowers, a senior US official has said. The meeting between Jake Sullivan and Wang Yi was not publicised by Washington or Beijing ahead of the talks on Wednesday and Thursday in the Austrian capital. The White House described the wide-ranging discussions, in which the two leaders spent more than eight hours together, as “candid” and “constructive”.…